There was an armed guard at each corner of the case, watching each man and woman as they filed past. The line ran between faded crimson ropes that were hooked over metal stands, but it was moving fast and eager, jostling in the push and hurry to get to the front and have the moment.
One by one they would pause in front of the scorched and ragged flag, hawking up saliva as they got ready, then spitting it out so that it splattered against the filthy glass, hanging there before sliding toward the shallow metal trough that ran all around the case.
"No," Rick said quietly, looking around for some means of escape.
"Yes," Ryan hissed. "Us getting chilled won't help Old Glory."
"Can't," the freezie insisted.
The one-eyed man reached out and gripped him by the arm verycasually, fingers tightening like chromed steel clamps.
Rick whimpered, legs weakening, and he nearly fell. Only Ryan's hand held him upright. "Please," he begged.
"We go and we do it. Do it good. Then we get out. And we think of some way of getting back in here, Rick. Understand?"
"Yes, yes. Just let go of... Oh, that was real shitty."
"Saved three lives, friend. And one of them was mine."
"But not the flag," the freezie muttered. "That's the bottom of the fucking tube, Ryan."
"When we come back after the tools, lover," Krysty suggested, "mebbe we could collect the flag at the same time."
"Could be." Ryan nodded.
With the narrowed eyes of the guards scanning everyone's face, there was no way of cheating. Ryan swallowed hard as he neared the head of the line, feeling the dryness in his mouth. He eased Krysty ahead of him, staying close to Rick in case the freezie lost his nerve at the last moment. If that happened, he'd already decided to push him aside, grab Krysty and make a run for it.
But the line moved so fast that the moment had come and gone almost before they realized it.
Ryan concentrated on looking at the flag. There was a large card notice, barely readable, which he assumed told the Russians where the Stars and Stripes had come from. By the burn marks along one ragged edge he guessed it could have been from the ruins of the U.S. Embassy in the ville.
Ahead of him, Krysty snarled, hawked and spit vigorously.
Rick hesitated for a cold fraction of a second, then managed a creditable amount of spittle. Ryan performed blankly and unemotionally, moving to follow the others across the hall toward what he guessed must be an exit.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed one of the guards take the small black voice-trans from his lapel and press it against his ear, obviously finding some difficulty in hearing what was said in the center of the echoing building and speaking urgently into it. He listened again, then snapped his head around, eyes raking the crowd.
Ryan knew.
One of the reasons he'd lived as long as he had in the Deathlands, on the sharp edge, was that he never ignored a hair-prickling feeling.
He moved a few steps ahead, collecting Rick with one hand, bumping into Krysty, brushing aside the angry mumbles from the people in the line.
"Think they got an ace on the line at us," he whispered. "'Out. Fast."
Zimyanin tapped his gloved fingers gently against the edge of the desk, his voice deceptively soft as he talked to the quivering official in charge of the museum.
"One minute, you say?"
"No more, Comrade Major-Commissar. I promise you of that."
Zimyanin nodded. "And your people are sure? Sure of these three?"
"Oh, yes. Yes indeed. Yes, there is no doubt of it, Comrade Major-Commissar."
"My own patrols were on the streets. Threw up blocks. But no sign. Perhaps they are still in here? No?"
"No, Comrade Major-Commissar. We closed it immediately and it has been searched from top to bottom and from bottom to top and from side to side and from..." His voice faded and died as he realized he'd run out of options.
"I believe you, Comrade."
The official was more terrified than he'd ever been of this bald man with the long mustache and eyes like chips of river ice who strutted in his office, his voice caressing like a silken whip. The room seemed too small, the air too thick and choking. The man wanted desperately to go to the rest room, but didn't dare to mention it.
Zimyanin ticked off the points. "Tough-seeming outlander. One eye. Tall woman with very red hair. A third man. Nobody noticed much about him. One woman said she thought he nearly fell over, and two of the visitors said they thought they heard the outlanders talking in..." he glanced down at his notes, "...ah, yes. Talking in a strange way. And they've vanished like smoke. Such a shame your communication system worked so slowly and so badly, Comrade. Such a great shame."
"Indeed, yes, Comrade Major-Commissar. I shall make sure it's improved."
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"But it is not good and you..." The words again drifted into stillness. The pressure on the official's bladder was becoming intolerable.
"You have good furs, Comrade?"
Was this a trick question? "I think so, Comrade Major-Commissar," he replied cautiously.
"Good. The winters out on the Kamchatka Peninsula are cold, Comrade. The summers are also cold. But the winters... ah, they are verycold."
"Why would... you don't surely?.."
"It's bleak work scraping frozen shit out of the middens of the mutie camps, Comrade."
"But..."
Zimyanin rarely indulged himself in anything approaching a joke, but he was feeling good, certain now that his intuition had been correct. There wereAmericans in the ville. He would find them and capture them.
"Yes, Comrade, the middens. But you must look to the bright future."
"The future? Bright, Comrade Major-Commissar?"
"Yes. After ten years of good behavior they will allow you to use a brush."
It was only as the sec officer walked from the room that the official realized he had pissed himself.
"Close isn't the word, Ryan." The freezie panted, doubled over against a tumbled brick wall, fighting for breath.
"Then what is the word?" Ryan replied. "Don't see your problem, Rick. We got away with six or seven seconds to spare. Roadblocks came down and we were at least ten yards up the highway from them."
"How'd they get on the trail, lover?" Krysty asked, pushing back an errant fiery curl from over her right eye.
"I don't..." Ryan rubbed his finger along the side of his nose. "I just saw, when we were outside the main entrance... I could have sworn on heart's blood that I saw that Russkie again."
"Who?"
"His name was Zimyanin, Gregori Zimyanin. Mean-eyed son of a bitch. Met him once. I'll tell you about it, Rick. Put you in the picture. If it was him, then it could mean trouble. He knows me, and he was some kind of sec officer. Best hide up till dark. Make us some plans. Then move at night."
Chapter Twenty-Two
"Bald-headed cretin!"
"True, dear Comrade Sister Anya. I can't deny it."
"Pock-faced imbecile!"
"No doubt at all, Comrade Sister Anya. Your vision is as sharp as ever."
"And stop agreeing with me!" Her voice was so shrill that Gregori Zimyanin feared that the window panes in their apartment would shatter.
"Whatever you say, Comrade Sister..."
The cheap mug his wife held, crudely painted with the words A Happy Memory of Leningrad, shattered against the wall a few inches from his head, splinters showering him. He winced away from his wife's raging fury.
"That was a gift from old Uncle Fyodor," he protested. "He would be so upset to think that we didn't treasure his kind present to us."
"Fuck Uncle Fyodor!" she screamed.
"If you wish me to, Comrade Sister Anya, though I think the old man might vigorously resist my advances."